A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
2 men blow themselves up in Egypt
ISMAILIA, Egypt - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai yesterday in what appeared to be abortive attacks by a mysterious militant group on a multinational peace force and on the Egyptian police.
One bomber died near an airport used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which monitors the border with Israel, and another close to an Egyptian police vehicle. No one else was hurt, the interior ministry said.
Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said he thought the incidents could be linked to bombings which killed 18 people in the budget resort of Dahab on Monday - the third attack in two years on Sinai resorts frequented by foreign tourists. - (Reuters)
Zuma rape denial 'fanciful', court told
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's most politically explosive trial since the end of apartheid neared its conclusion yesterday, with the prosecution describing would-be president Jacob Zuma's claim that he had consensual sex with his rape accuser as "fanciful". Prosecutor Charin de Beer told the Johannesburg High Court in closing arguments that the 31-year-old HIV-positive woman would never have agreed to sex with the dismissed deputy president because she regarded him as a father figure; wasn't interested in him sexually because she was a lesbian; and that she would have insisted on using a condom. - (AP)
Kinnock banned, fined for speeding
LONDON - Neil Kinnock, the former Labour Party leader and European commissioner, was banned from driving for six months and fined £800 yesterday for speeding. Kinnock (64) admitted breaking speed limits on the M4 motorway on two occasions last year. - (Reuters)
Eight held in anti-terror swoop
ROME - Police in Italy and France arrested eight Algerians and two Italians as part of an anti-terror operation yesterday, police in the southern Italian city of Naples said.
Those arrested in Italy were picked up in Naples and the nearby city of Caserta, and in Milan, police said. No details were provided on the arrests made in France, although the ANSA news agency said they occurred in Marseilles.
The suspects were believed to have links to an Algerian group said to have links to al-Qaeda. - (AP)